Aftermath
by Scarpaw
Summary: The immediate aftermath, after Louis' head hits the floor and the tears start coming. Spoilers for M.9


_**Aftermath**_

 _The immediate aftermath, after Louis' head hits the floor and the tears start coming. Spoilers for M.9_

Teacher carries them both home. Domi on one side, a stoic unmoving face that seems to haven't processed everything that's happened yet, and Noé on the other, incapable of stopping the uncontrollable sobbing that he started. No one says anything, even though in any other situation Teacher most likely would have made a crack along the lines of him being too old to carry Domi and Noé like he is.

The bodies are left behind.

Teacher doesn't hurry back to the castle. His pace is almost leisurely, but it still seems almost too quick for them to have arrived back when they finally do. One of the maids opens the door, and gives a soft gasp as she does so. Noé's tears haven't stopped the whole trek back, and he is the only one of the three covered in blood.

Covered in Louis' blood.

Teacher begins talking for the first time since he asked if Noé was alright, passing Domi off to one maid, and Noé to another. Hot tea and a carriage home for Domi, he tells the one maid, and a bath and bed for Noé, the other is instructed.

They both are too big, too old, to be carried as they are, to be treated as young as they are being treated, but Domi and Noé are both unable to say anything to the contrary, and the maids make no comment on the situation as they follow Teacher's orders. The man himself has already disappeared, vanishing the moment the weight of both children had left his arms and the orders passed on. (This, as it were, is not unusual behavior for the master of the castle.)

As the maids begin to head off in their separate ways – the parlor with Domi, and the bathroom with Noé – Domi breaks her silence.

"No!" She gasps, almost desperately, leaning out of the grip of the maid holding her, fighting it, trying to reach out for Noé. "No! Don't – I don't want–"

Domi is shushed, not unkindly, and they are separated the first time all evening. The first time since – since _before_.

Noé doesn't stop crying. It's almost surprising – he would have thought he would have run out of tears by now, but he hasn't. He cries the whole way down to the bathroom, and stands in the corner of the room crying the whole time the maid draws the bath.

Noé cries and cries and cries and cries and _cries_ the whole time, he can't seem to stop, can't seem to calm down, why haven't his tears dried up yet? Why are they still going? He loses track of time, of what's going on, and the next thing he's vaguely aware of through his tears is he's on the bed in his room, two servants whispering to one another at the door.

At some point, while there are still tears going down his face, Noé has begun hiccupping and wheezing, his throat terribly sore and stomach doing ill flip-flops.

"You're going to make yourself ill, crying so much, Master Noé," A maid tells him, suddenly appearing in front of him, holding a cup and saucer. The two servants from the doorway are gone, if they had ever been there to begin with, and the maid presses the cup into his hand. "Drink this."

Noé really doesn't want to, doesn't think he can even if he wanted to, and instead of taking the cup cries, "I want Domi."

The maid sighs, and instead of addressing Noé's request, repeats herself.

"Drink this." And Noé does his best to comply, because he recognizes her tone as being annoyed, and for all his nonchalance of how he came to be at the de Sade Castle, there would always be something about annoyed adults that put him on edge.

His hands shake as he brings the cup to his mouth, liquid splashing out onto the saucer, and the maid doesn't say anything as her hands come to help steady his as he starts to drink the tea. It's more bitter than the tea he's used to having, but the maid doesn't let up until Noé drinks the entire cup. Once he's finished, the maid puts the cup and saucer onto the night table, while Noé… well, Noé doesn't keep crying, even though part of him wants to. No, his vision starts to darken at the sides, and he sways to the side, the feeling coming over him vaguely familiar in a sickening way. As he slumps to the side, the maid catches him, shifting him so he's fully on the bed, taking the time to cover him up. The last thing he sees as the darkness takes him completely is the maid, talking in a low tone with someone at the bedroom door who Noé almost thinks is Teacher.

When Noé wakes, the day seems closer to afternoon than morning. What happened the night before almost doesn't seem real in the wake of how normal the day feels. Noé is almost able to convince himself that everything was just a bad dream, that Louis or Domi will be coming to his bedroom any moment to scold him for being lazy, when he hears an unfamiliar shout from downstairs.

Noé knows all the servants at Teacher's castle, knows everyone in the village on the other side of the forest. The voice doesn't belong to anyone he knows.

But, he does know who the voice belongs to.

 _ **Curse-bearers are beheaded by the Bourreaus. That's the rules.**_ An ugly voice whispers to him, a distorted mockery of Louis' words from the night before. And Noé doesn't know what comes over him, but the urge to scream overwhelms him and he does so.

Noé has never been the sort of child to scream. Even when upset, he had never screamed. Not at Grandma and Grandpa, not when he had been first taken to Atlus, not when Teacher had bought him and brought him to the castle, never with Louis and Domi. Noé has never screamed. Tears, yes, and oh, how Noé's tears were plentiful – his first memory was of him crying, and he was almost certain that his last one would be of him crying as well. He has always been a bit of a crybaby, a fact that Louis has told him before will never change.

But screaming is new to Noé. Screaming is something he never imagined he do. But he does, he screams, screams, _screams_. He screams, trying to block out the ugly words whispering in his head, the ugly voice telling him _**all your friends are dead and it's your fault, your fault, all your fault, why didn't you do anything, why didn't you save them?**_ And he screams, louder, louder, louder still, trying to block it out, clamping his hands over his ears, as if that could stop the voice from whispering in his ears.

Feet storm towards his room, a heavy-footed gait that somehow manages to be louder than the scream tearing itself from his throat, and then Noé's bedroom door is being slammed open, the unfamiliar voice shouting into his room, "What the hell is going on in here!"

The cup and saucer that was used to knock Noé out the previous evening are still sitting on the night table by his bed, and it's some unknown reflex that Noé never knew he possessed that leads him to pick up the cup, and hurl it at the unfamiliar man. Words get put to his screaming now, and it switches to a chant of,

"Get out, get out, get out, _get out_!"

The cup smashes against the door, narrowly missing the Bourreau's face. The voice gets louder, louder, louder still, and Noé screams louder to match it, to cover it, anything not to hear it. The Bourreau looks as if he's about to step into the room, and as soon as his foot moves over the threshold of Noé's room, Noé's sanctuary, the saucer follows suit and meets its demise at the same spot the cup had.

"Monsieur de Sade!" The Bourreau barks, louder than the voice, louder than Noé, so he screams louder, covering his ears, trying to drown both, trying to drown everyone, out. "Explain yourself, immediately!"

"Hmm?" And then Teacher is at the doorway as well but, unlike the Bourreau, he does not make the mistake of stepping over the threshold of the room. If he's fazed by Noé's screaming, if he's bothered by it, he doesn't show it and doesn't address it. Teacher addresses the broken ceramics first, as if Noé is an afterthought, a background piece that is of minor import. "Ah, pity these broke. At least it wasn't the good china…"

" _Monsieur de Sade!"_ The Bourreau snaps, losing his temper, and causes Noé to scream louder, louder still, louder than he thought himself ever capable.

 _ **It's your fault, your fault, your fault, it was your idea to go try and save Mina, you're the reason everyone died, you're the reason Louis died, Louis wouldn't have even been there if he wasn't trying to save you, you put Dominique in danger, you nearly killed her, you killed her brother, it's your fault, you did this, you did this, YOU DID THIS.**_

" _If you don't quiet that brat, I'll –!"_

"You'll what?" Teacher interrupts the Bourreau, voice calm, cold, low, but sharp and powerful enough that it cuts through Noé's screams like they're coming from two miles out, not five feet away. "After all, weren't you the one who wanted to interview him? I warned you, did I not, that this might occur?"

"Oh, pardon me, Monsieur Bourreau," Teacher continues after barely a moment's pause between the two, the Bourreau appearing lost for words in the interim, "It appears I had forgotten that the Bourreau's are far better at traumatizing children than comforting them."

"Monsieur de Sade!" The Bourreau starts to say something, but Teacher cuts him off once again.

"I do believe you have overstayed your welcome here." Teacher says, gesturing the Bourreau out of the room to continue the conversation. He still hasn't addressed Noé or his screaming, and doesn't as the Bourreau exits the room, shutting the door behind them, leaving Noé alone, with just himself and his thoughts.

Noé continues to scream. He screams and screams until he thinks he can't anymore, and then he screams more. Noé screams until his throat feels like it's on fire, like every scream feels like it's being dragged on its knees through the dirt, screams until he physically cannot anymore, and then, only then, does he finally stop. He collapses upon the bed, not even having the strength to hold himself, and heaves for breaths, trying to ignore the ugly, ugly, words that still filter in and whisper through his head.

Maybe he falls back asleep for a while, maybe he doesn't, as time becomes an illusion that Noé cares not to keep track of and then the next thing he's aware of is that it's turned to night once more. At some point, someone had come into his room and covered him up, as when Noé sits up in bed, the comforter slides off him.

He's not alone in his room either, as when he sits up and looks across the room, Teacher is there, standing at the window with his back to Noé.

Remembering his spectacle from earlier, Noé shuffles embarrassedly, not quite sure what to say or do. When he opens his mouth to say something, he is immediately and intensely reminded of how his throat is on fire, and all that comes out is a pained whine instead.

"Ah, _mon chaton_ , you're finally awake." It's a casual observation from Teacher, who barely turns away from the window to acknowledge Noé.

"I'm…" Noé says slowly, deliberately, his voice more of a croak than anything as he chooses his words carefully as they scrape out of his throat, as Noé tries to think of the best thing to say. "…sorry, Teacher."

For what, though? A slimy, creepy, voice slithers over him nastily. For the scene he caused earlier? _**For forcing him to kill his grandson?**_

"Hm?" Teacher looks back towards Noé, his face cast in shadows to the point where Noé can't discern anything but the turn of his lips. "Do you feel you have something to be sorry for, _mon chaton?_ "

Yes, Noé wants to say, because it was his fault, everything was his fault, none of this would have occurred if it hadn't been for Noé foolishly wanting to save Mina somehow.

But Noé doesn't say anything. An odd silence encapsulates the bedroom, time seemingly frozen as neither Teacher nor Noé say anything. When the silence finally is broken, the answer is a question that Noé's almost afraid of the answer.

"How… How long had Louis known?" Noé says instead of answering, choosing to stare straight at the bedspread, not wanting to see Teacher's face, afraid of the look that might be upon it. Afraid of the truth that the question would belie. "That… that he was a curse-bearer?"

Tears, of which Noé had believed he had already run out of, start to rise, and he does his best to hold them back, to keep them contained.

"How long did he suffer alone without telling anyone?"

Teacher doesn't say anything and that, more than anything else, hurts the worst.

* * *

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
